


revelations

by moth_writes



Series: smiling fate [21]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Agatha meets Ebb's dryad, Carry On Countdown (Simon Snow), Gen, Minor Simon Snow/Agatha Wellbelove, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28100394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moth_writes/pseuds/moth_writes
Summary: Agatha is overwhelmed. She flees to the Woods, and meets someone new....I head straight for the Wavering Woods....The crack widens and widens, and then a girl-woman, really, she looks about my mum’s age-melts out of the trunk.
Series: smiling fate [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2026844
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10
Collections: Agatha Wellbelove fics, Carry On Countdown 2020





	revelations

**Author's Note:**

> Done for the Carry On Countdown Day 22: Unlikely Friends

AGATHA

I can’t think in here.

It’s loud, so loud. It feels like everyone is talking at once, but when I look around no one is.

I’m in Magic Words, my last class for today. I run my hand through my hair and pretend it’s a barrier, like no one can see me through it.

I want to be alone.

I don’t want to be alone.

I want to talk to someone, but not anyone I know. I want someone to know what I want to say, but I want them to forget it immediately afterwards.

I can’t have that. Memory spells are complicated and take more focus than I have right now. More magic, too. And they’re illegal-I don’t fancy spending a night in the Coven’s jailroom while I wait for them to decide to take my wand away for six weeks. (That’s the standard punishment for first time offences.)(Penny told me.)

I count the seconds ticking by on the clock and use that to center myself. Tick, tick, tick-steady and predictable and what I need.

The last bell rings and I grab my bag and shove my books inside. My notes will be crumpled later, but I don’t really care.

I don’t go to my room. I head straight for the Wavering Woods.

The wind nips at my nose and I pull my jumper higher, though it doesn’t do much. Ebb gave it to me and it’s dreadfully warm, but that doesn’t help my face.

I half wish I remembered to bring my hat. I didn’t want to ruin my hair this morning, though, so I left it.

I reach the front of the Woods and dried leaves crunch under my feet. I keep going.

There’s a clearing a few meters in, where the campus buildings are just barely visible through the trees. I sit at the edge of it and breathe.

I’ll ruin my skirt. I don’t care. 

I count the birds flitting around and listen to the leaves rustle. It’s still noisy, but this is a kind I can handle. I breathe deep and let it out slowly.

“Hello,” a quiet voice says.

I frown. That sounded like it was coming from directly above me, but there isn’t anyone around.

“Hi?” I ask. There’s a sound like splitting wood and when I look up, a barely formed face is peeking at me through a crack in the tree I was leaning on.

I stand and look back. The crack widens and widens, and then a girl-woman, really, she looks about my mum’s age-melts out of the trunk.

That’s the best way I can describe it, I think. Like sap pouring out and solidifying.

She stands before me, a little shorter and slighter. She’s dressed like a Victorian widow in all black, with a cinched waist and puffy skirt and veil pushed back. I wonder how she got it from a tree-do dryads have boutiques?

“Hi,” I say again. She curtsies.

She doesn’t say anything, and for a moment we just stand and look at each other. I see the details in her face, the wrinkles at her mouth and the crows’ feet around her eyes. Her skin is striped like bark and textured-I think if I touched her cheek it would feel exactly like touching a tree.

She looks timeless. She could be thousands of years old or twenty, I can’t tell. (I think she wants to look thirty, though. Why would a tree form wrinkles on purpose?)(She might like them. My mum talks about wrinkles like they’re the worst blemish possible, something to be avoided and covered at all costs.)

“You have something to say,” she says. It isn’t a question. Her voice is soft and deep and echoes oddly-it’s like talking into a well. Or hearing a well talk.

“Yeah,” I admit. (Not to her-to me.)(I don’t want to acknowledge that I want to vent. My mother would say needing to vent, to complain, is weakness and I should find something more ladylike to do.)

“So talk.” She says simply. I think she’d listen. I hesitate. “Sit,” she amends, dropping to the ground in a graceful ruffle of skirts.

I follow, sitting cross-legged in front of her. Her back is ramrod straight, and I wonder if she’s uncomfortable.

I let my words out in a rush. This is exactly what I wanted, to tell everything to someone who can’t-or won’t-tell anyone else. Someone I don’t have to face again if I don’t want to.

She listens, nodding thoughtfully. She doesn’t try to interject anything, doesn’t try to give me a solution or an answer. She just _listens_ , and it’s so refreshing, so exactly what I need I almost cry.

I’m not supposed to have thoughts and dreams and experiments. I’m supposed to be the Chosen One’s endgame, his perfect, pretty, shallow little girlfriend, little wife, little mother of his kids. 

I don’t want that, I think. Or if I do want that I want to _choose_ it, instead of having it forced on me.

I pour it all out, every thought that’s been plaguing me, and when I finish there’s silence. 

I look at her. She looks at me. 

Her back is still ramrod straight, though she sways slightly. I wonder why until I look up-she’s mimicking the movement of the tree. 

“Do you want to vent?” I ask. “Now that I’ve poured all my problems and deepest insecurities on you, I mean.”

She smiles. “Not particularly. I have peace with near everything in my life, and anyway. Dryads don’t move much. I can’t tell you of the places I’ve been. I’m confined to this forest.”

“That must suck,” I blurt without thinking and wince. That’s insensitive.

“No,” she says and she doesn’t seem offended. Amused, maybe, but not angry. “I have everything I want here. I can see through every tree in these woods and I listen to the magic sing. It’s rather freeing, I think.”

I don’t how how being confined can feel that way, but as long as she’s happy I don’t care.

“I have a few stories,” she tells me. “I am not bored with my life. I have had my taste of adventure and I have decided it’s far too bitter for me.”

“Okay.” 

“Would you like to hear one of my stories? It’s rather short, I’m afraid.”

“ _Yes_ ,” I say and the exuberance in my voice surprises me. She laughs, short and sharp.

“Very well.” She pauses. “It was years ago. I was younger then, of course, though dryads age slowly. I choose to appear as this,” she adds “I chose to age myself to match the human perception of my age. To appear aged, rather. I am very young still inside.”

I nod and take the information in. I didn't know that. I wonder if Penny knows.

“I met a girl,” she continues and her voice is soft, so soft. “With hair like spun wool and lips like petals. I loved her. Still do.”

“Where is she?” I ask. “ _Who_ is she?”

Her smile’s more wistful now but no less patient. “Still here. She lives on the grounds, just outside my reach. It’s a funny thing, isn’t it, that I left her so she’d be free and she chose to stay so close.”

I don’t know how to feel. I want to find this girl and bring her here and ask her why she stayed, why she didn’t leave, why she hasn’t come back.

“Do you regret letting her go?” 

“Not at all. It was puppy love, infatuation on both sides. I love her still and I cherish our memories together, but I am happier alone. There are some who fare far happier without romance, and I am of their number.”

I think about that. My mother talks of being alone like it’s the worst thing imaginable. 

I wonder if I’d be happier alone.

“It’s time for you to go,” she says. I look up. Did I do something wrong, to have her dismiss me so suddenly?

She sees my face and lays a gentle and on my shoulder. Her skin is cold through the fabric and it catches slightly on my shirt. “The bells are ringing,” she explains. “And you are cold. Time to go home, child.”

I nod and stand. I feel odd, hollow, like I’ve been emptied out and replaced with something light and warm. “Goodbye,” I say. “Thank you.”

She leans back and melts into the tree. The last I see of her is a bright, genuine smile.

I’m out of the Woods and halfway to my room when I realize I never asked her name.

**Author's Note:**

> i really love Agatha
> 
> i don't remember if Ebb's dryad is given a name or appearance, and i'm too lazy to go look it up so. also, re: her design, the only dryad i remember was dressed in lolita (?) clothes, so i went for about the same amount of fancy just for another time period.
> 
> On a more serious note: I chose to write the dryad as not aroace for a reason. I'm aroace, and i don't see that much in media, but i see far less of people who are allo and choose to stay alone (as in without romance) because they're happier that way, and not because of trauma or anything like that.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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